Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 35:139 (Jul 1878)
Article: Erasmus Darwin
Author: Thomas Hill

BSac 35:139 (July 1878) p. 461

Erasmus Darwin

Rev. Thomas Hill

Erasmus Darwin was born in Nottinghamshire, England, in 1731. Educated at Cambridge, and pursuing medical studies at Edinburgh, he began the practice of medicine at Lichfield, in Staffordshire, in 1756. Married in 1757, he was left a widower in 1770, with three sons. The eldest, Charles, gave great promise of brilliant talent, but died early in life from a wound received in dissecting; the second, Erasmus, Jr., showed no taste for science, and died a bachelor; the third, Robert Darwin, became a distinguished physician. Eight years after the death of his wife, Dr. Darwin fell greatly in love, at first meeting, with Mrs. Pole; but as Colonel Pole was living the passion was only allowed to exhale in gallant verses to one whom he called “doomed forever to another’s arms.” The “forever “lasted, however, only about two years, when the Colonel died, and Darwin laid suit in earnest. Mrs. Pole consented, but on one stern condition: the doctor must leave Lichfield. He married her in 1781, and moved to Derby, where he remained happily with her until his death in 1802. During the twenty-five years’ residence in Lichfield he drew about him some distinguished admirers and friends; among them Thomas Day, the author of Sanford and Merton, and Richard Edgeworth, the father of his more celebrated daughter Maria.

His fame and skill as a practising physician were very great; and his treatment of diseases is, I understand, acknowledged by the best physicians of to-day to have been judicious and energetic. It was only in the reasons he gave for his action that he failed. He placed the greatest re-

BSac 35:139 (July 1878) p. 462

liance upon diet and regimen. Good beef, mutton, and poultry, milk and fruits; great abstemiousness in fermented liquors, and total abstinence from distilled; plenty of outdoor exercise, and well ventilated rooms within; these were his very sensible hobbies. Undoubtedly some of his fame was due to the personal attractions of his character. Although inclined to be somewhat sceptical in religious matters, he was always decorous and respectful in speaking of the opinions of others; and he showed many of the best virtues of a Christian character. His omnivorous appetite for knowledge, the fruit-fulness of his fancy, the playfulness of his irony, made him an agreeable companion; his great taste for botany and landscape gardening were indulged upon his grounds; and the hospitality of his house increased the attraction. Naturally somewhat clumsy in his appearance and movement, his awkwardness was increased by his breaking his knee-pan on occasion of one of his tumbles from a grotesque sulky of his own contrivance. But neither his lameness, nor the deep pits left by the small-pox, nor his inveterate stu...